Teacher leads the way to Reading Recovery

Instructor trains peers to help struggling pupils

October 23, 2002|By Mary Jane Bezark, Special to the Tribune.

In the late 1980s Mary Penich, then a reading teacher in North Chicago, attended a conference where she learned about a program to help 1st graders struggling with reading. In 1990 and '91 she and five colleagues became trainees in the course, called Reading Recovery.

"After just a few half-hour sessions with the children we knew for sure this [was] working," she said.

Penich, 51, became a Reading Recovery teacher in the North Chicago schools, and in 1998 she became the teacher leader of the Northern Illinois Reading Recovery Consortium, a group of 12 Lake and McHenry County school districts that use the program.

At the same time she was offered the job, a Lake County school district offered her a position as its assistant superintendent for curriculum.

"I felt very honored by both offers, but I knew the consortium was in serious need of a teacher leader," she said.

Reading assessment key

Penich is responsible for instructing Reading Recovery trainees, who each work with four children. In the days before school starts, she explains how to do a reading assessment, one of the keys to the program's effectiveness.

"It pinpoints what each child understands and what confuses him or her about reading and writing," Penich said.

This year Penich is working with five trainees, teaching a weekly three-hour class for them and visiting them while they work with the children. The training goes on for an entire school year. Afterward, trainees are registered as Reading Recovery teachers and receive a certificate from the university where they took classes.

The program starts early in the school year to help the children who are the lowest performers. Assessing all the 1st graders who are referred by their teachers takes about two weeks. Then the teachers begin working with the children who tested the lowest. After those children graduate, new children start the program.

"These are the ones who are standing in line to repeat 1st grade, but Reading Recovery can and does turn them around," Penich said.

The children work one-on-one for half an hour each day with the Reading Recovery teachers for 12 to 20 weeks. At the end of that time most of the children are reading at 1st-grade level. The success rate of pupils in the consortium is 85 percent to 88 percent, Penich said.

"The children who need our help are glad to come with us when we arrive to take them to their lessons," Penich said. "They've been anxious about learning to read, because they've been through kindergarten--most kindergartens are literacy-oriented now--and couldn't do the work the other children could."

The first lesson starts with reading a simple book.

"Sometimes the teacher and child will write a little story themselves and then read it," Penich said. "For example, I might say, `You told me you like the beach. What do you like about it?' The child might answer, `I like the sand. I like the water. I like the waves.' Then I write it in the child's writing book, and we read it together.

"The next day she can tell me what the writing says because it's her own language. In a day or two she will notice the word `I.' I'll ask her `Where's that word "I"?' and she'll point to it.

"In another day or two when we're looking at the story I'll remind her that she said she likes sand and ask her how she thinks that word starts. She might recognize the `s' sound and find the word. If she doesn't, I'll show her a plastic `s,' she'll look at it and then find `sand.'"

Even when a student can point out most letters and is familiar with some frequently used words, the lessons always include some practice to make the letters and words even more familiar.

"Fast recognition promotes fluid reading," Penich said. "And the children learn to use known words to build new ones."

Special books help process

Reading Recovery teachers use books printed for the program. About 10 pages long with attractive illustrations, the books are written so that each one is slightly more difficult than the last.

"When a child reads, we always talk about something he's done well," Penich said. "For instance, we might have an exchange like this: `I liked what you did when you couldn't quite remember if that word was "dog" or "puppy." You looked at that word and you looked at the picture and you said, "dog." And why did you say "dog?"

"`Because it begins with "d."'

"`Good for you.'"

The children keep all the books they have read in a bag or basket, and when they finish the program often show how happy they are to be readers by saying, "Look how many books I have," Penich said.

Among Penich's other responsibilities are providing professional growth instruction for the 41 teachers, visiting them and the 1st-grade teachers with whom they work, and helping teachers when they encounter problems. She also teaches two children in the program and arranges for teachers to take turns conducting a lesson in a room with one-way glass while colleagues observe.